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FORTUNE magazine weighs in on the worst state in the union to do business:

The state government under embattled Democratic Governor Gray Davis is turning so stridently antibusiness that it threatens to inflict permanent structural damage. Since 2002 the left-leaning legislature has enacted or expanded half-a-dozen laws dealing with burdensome regulations like family leave and overtime pay. Some corporate leaders think California is becoming Sweden-on-the-Pacific. "I've never seen anything like this is 35 years," says Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, the big mortgage company based near Los Angeles. "The state is punishing business, yet it's somehow convinced that business will not leave."

Wrong: Companies�and jobs�are departing in droves. The state has lost 289,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001. "The jobs that have to stay here are ones that involve direct contact with customers," says Liam McGee, head of Bank of America in California. "The mobile jobs�in systems development, manufacturing, call centers�are moving to other states." Fidelity National, the nation's biggest title-insurance company, is shifting its headquarters from Santa Barbara to Jacksonville. Scores of the small businesses that form the backbone of California's economy are moving either jobs or headquarters out of state. Buck Knives is going to Idaho, and Coast Converters, a bagmaking company, to Las Vegas. Taylor-Dunn, a manufacturer of cartlike vehicles for airports, is expanding in Ohio and Missouri. Though Countrywide is growing rapidly, Mozilo is shrinking operations in California and shifting all expansion to low-cost states like Texas. By his estimate, the flood of new legislation will increase Countrywide's cost per worker by $4,000 to $5,000 a year.